


Relentless

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Home and Away [25]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7963717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, a significant change in perspective."</p><p>Dean Winchester is relentless in his pursuit of being the best at The Academy, and it nets him a summer internship with 'deep space telemetry', where his world - and his universe - are turned upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relentless

Every day for his first year at the Academy, Dean was sure he was in the wrong place, that he wasn’t meant to be one of these fresh-faced cadets, that he wasn’t made to be a warrior and a leader. Every second of the day, he was sure that one of his classmates or instructors would look him and know, cry  _Impostor!_ and toss him out on his ear.  
  
But it didn’t happen. So when he started his second year, he doubled down. Jonathan had been right - he had a leg up on a lot of the other students in the marksmanship club. He also joined a club of other gearheads, who liked engines and making things with their hands, and they started running a semi-underground robot fighting ring. (The robot Dean had frankensteined out of an old Walkman was ugly as sin but undefeated so far.)  
  
He was still officially signed up for the fast track into deep space telemetry, but after Jonathan had up and disappeared with barely a phone call during Dean’s first semester, he’d almost changed tracks. Dean could still remember Sam’s terrified phone call, that someone had kicked Jonathan’s door in, that he was gone. He remembered Jonathan’s clipped, angry tone as he told Dean everything was all right, he was just quitting the garage, doing something for the Air Force, and he’d be fine. Dean didn’t believe for one second that Jonathan was actually fine, but apparently all along Dad had been in contact with Jonathan’s uncle Jack, and Jack said Jonathan was fine, so Dad said to let it go.  
  
Dean wasn’t going to let it go, and he was pretty sure the only way to find out what had really happened to Jonathan was to get into the deep space telemetry program. Then he’d have the clearance he needed to know the truth. So he busted his ass to be the best of the best.  
  
Apart from having a slightly bizarre class load - linguistics, negotiation skills, physics and astronomy, an extra combat tactics course, anthropology - he didn’t think he was doing anything special. There were a few other cadets who were on the deep space telemetry track with him, a boy named Ashton (“call me Ash”) Mitchell, a girl named Lynette Hammond, a girl named Lara Ford. Ash came from a long line of Air Force officers. His father had lost his legs crashing a test plane. His brother had almost died crashing a test plane but was awarded a Medal of Honor. Both his father and brother were Academy graduates. Lara’s cousin Aiden was a Marine who’d gone MIA, but she’d had the grades for the Academy, and she wanted to fly.  
  
Ash said his older brother had been assigned to deep space telemetry, and he wanted to work with him one day. Lynette said her Aunt Sam also worked in deep space telemetry, and Aunt Sam was the smartest woman in the universe, and she was going to be just like her. Lara wanted to fly - and she wanted to find out what had happened to her cousin, who’d also been part of deep space telemetry. Dean said he’d heard deep space telemetry was where the best went, and, well, he wanted to be one of the best.  
  
And he was. Top in his class in everything he could manage. Signed up for competitions, stayed up late making crazy gadgets to impress his engineering instructors. He won, and he aced tests, and the commendations piled up, and he heard the gossip in the halls: he was being compared to Jack O’Neill, to Cameron Mitchell, to Samantha Carter, to Jennifer Hailey, who’d been scooped up into deep space telemetry upon graduation. Ash, Lynette, and Lara started looking at him askance.  
  
“You’re relentless,” Ash said one night, while he and Dean were huddled over their Latin texts, slogging through translations.  
  
“I have to be,” Dean said.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You’re not the only one with family in deep space telemetry,” Dean said.

His hard work paid off. At the end of his second year, he was offered a summer internship. With deep space telemetry. Paid, conveniently located in town. Dean accepted the news with aplomb, and as soon as the senior cadet delivering the news departed, did a victory dance in his room. He called Dad, who, while a Marine, was proud of all Dean had accomplished. He called Sam, who was disappointed that Dean wasn’t going to help him get his driver’s license, but was pleased when Dean told him the truth: he could find out what was going on with Jonathan.  
  
“I’m pretty sure he’s alive, but I want to make sure he’s okay,” Sam said.  
  
“That’s what I’m going to find out, I promise. Take care of Dad, Bobby, and Krissy, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Sam said.  
  
Dean was a little confused when he was told to pack up his gear, that he’d be spending the summer in the barracks on base, but he obeyed - he was getting damn good at obeying, Dad and Bobby kept making jokes about how they couldn’t believe it - and then he was put on a bus with a bunch of Marines, trundling up the Mountain to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.  
  
NORAD.  
  
Deep space telemetry was beneath NORAD. The Marines were chivvied off the bus and down the elevator. Dean was taken to a side office and given a mountain of paperwork to sign, contracts and NDAs and more NDAs, and finally, after he’d signed everything, did they deign him ready to start his internship.  
  
“All right, Cadet,” Major Cartwright said. She was a JAG officer and really, really hot, but she seemed like the kind of woman who’d kill a guy for a bad remark, so Dean kept his opinion to himself. “You are ready to start your internship. Head to the elevator, and your escort will meet you there.”  
  
“My escort?” Dean asked.  
  
“Major Lorne.” Major Cartwright smiled, scooped up the paperwork, and left the office.  
  
Lorne. As in...Jonathan’s Lorne? Evan Lorne? Dean grabbed his duffel bag and headed for the elevator, armed with his brand new security badge. The guard scanned it, waved him through, and then Dean saw him.  
  
Major Lorne. Wearing olive BDUs and leaning on a pair of crutches, his right leg in a cast.  
  
“Cadet Winchester reports as ordered, sir.” Dean snapped to attention, saluted.  
  
“At ease, Cadet,” Lorne said. He sounded tired, had shadows under his eyes. “Good to see you again. Glad you stuck this out. Deep space telemetry is pretty amazing.”  
  
“I’m glad, sir.” Dean reached out, pressed the down button for the elevator. “If I may, sir, are you all right? Is - is our friend?”  
  
“I wouldn’t know about our mutual friend,” Lorne said stiffly. “He was posted - elsewhere. As for me - a building fell on me. I’m on stand-down until the CMO signs off on my return to active duty.”  
  
“A building fell on you?” Dean asked. The elevator opened, and he scooted inside, pressed the button to hold the door open while Lorne hobbled in.  
  
“Well, it was rigged with explosives,” Lorne said, “so the fact that it fell really shouldn’t be held against the builders or the architects.” He pressed a button for a much lower floor. “So, Cadet, you have two choices - you can watch the orientation video, or you can jump into the deep end feet first.”  
  
“How bad is the orientation video?” Dean asked.  
  
Lorne winced. “Dr. Jackson did an admirable job, but -”  
  
“Feet first,” Dean said. “My father was a Marine.”  
  
Lorne nodded. “Right. Have you ever seen Wormhole X-treme?”  
  
“I’m more of a Star Trek kinda guy, sir. Hot alien chicks,” Dean said.  
  
Lorne chuckled. “True fact, cadet: hot alien chicks are a trap about ninety percent of the time. And even if they aren’t a trap, they can kick your ass. Or both.”  
  
“You meet a lot of hot alien chicks, sir?” Dean asked.  
  
The elevator doors slid open, and there was a woman wearing olive BDUs and her black hair in non-regulation pigtails. She had no rank, though her uniform read _Mal Doran_.  
  
“Major Lorne,” she said, smiling flirtatiously, “I am given to understand that you are one of a handful of people on this base capable of producing tiramisu, and now that General Landry has...restricted my activities off-base, I find myself craving the better specimens of Earth food.”

“Cadet Winchester, this is Vala Mal Doran, one genuine hot alien chick. Vala, this is Cadet Winchester. He’s doing his summer internship at Stargate Command,” Lorne said.  
  
Vala actually waved at Dean, looked him up and down in a way that made him feel flattered but a little violated. “Well, hello, Cadet.”  
  
“After you,” Lorne said to Dean.  
  
Dean stepped off the elevator. “Stargate Command?” he asked. “Like the Starportals on Wormhole X-treme?”  
  
“Yep.” Lorne smiled. “Wormhole X-treme is real, kid. Less ridiculous, though. And the robots are never our friends.”  
  
“You’re messing with me, sir,” Dean said.  
  
“Not at all,” Vala said. She beamed. “I really am an alien. And I am pretty hot, aren't I? Shall I show you around, Cadet? Poor Major Lorne was so terribly injured in that thing that happened in that other galaxy -”  
  
“Yes, Vala, I can make tiramisu, and no, you cannot show Cadet Winchester around,” Lorne said patiently. “If you go speak to the kitchen staff and get them to requisition appropriate ingredients, I can get to the tiramisu in the next couple of days. Now, aren’t you and Nyan about due for a refresher course in Earth culture?”  
  
Vala’s pout was impressive, and Dean almost asked Lorne if he didn’t need to sit down after all, but then a man with brown hair and glasses came storming around the corner.  
  
“Vala!” he cried. “Have you been shopping on Amazon with my credit card again?”  
  
“But Daniel, I’ve been so bored,” Vala protested.  
  
Daniel looked deeply aggrieved. “Come to my office right now.”  
  
“It was lovely meeting you, Cadet,” Vala said, fluttering her fingers. “Get well soon, Major Lorne.” And she hurried after Daniel, who looked liable to bust a blood vessel.  
  
“Welcome,” Lorne said, “to Stargate Command. Let me show you to your quarters.”  
  
Lorne gave Dean a tour of the important places on base - the commissary, the gym, the labs, the gate room, the control room, the briefing room, the locker rooms, the archives, the rec rooms. By the end of it all, he looked exhausted. Dean’s head was spinning, though. Actual portals to other worlds. Stable wormholes. Alien invasions. Friendly human aliens. Faster-than-light travel. Friendly non-human aliens. Dean was part alien, with a special gene. The scientists at the lab were ridiculously excited when they gave Dean a little silver ball and it lit up when he touched it.  
  
At the commissary, for supper, Lorne sank into a chair with a grateful sigh, propped his crutches against the wall.  
  
“What exactly will I be doing here, sir?” Dean asked. “Working in the labs or going through the stargate or...or what?”  
  
“A little bit of everything, actually,” Lorne said. An SF brought him a tray of food, which he accepted gratefully. “You’ll do basic offworld training at the alpha site and be embedded on a gate team - _not_ a first contact team, Cadet. And you’ll also be helping out in the labs, doing some engineering work.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
Lorne smiled tiredly. “You’re our guinea pig, Cadet. The next generation of Stargate Command officers, specially trained for everything - dealing with alien cultures and alien tech, leading a team through the gate, leading a long-term outpost on an alien planet, whatever we need. We need to see if the course of study designed for the Academy is really effective.”  
  
Dean blinked, sat back. “I just - wow. I had no idea.”  
  
“Neither did, when I first found out,” Lorne said. “I’m a geophysicist by training. A surveyor. Learned to fly C-130s, because every flyboy needs some kind of wings, right?And then they came to me. Offered me the opportunity for advancement and promotion, to build my resume, to build a career that shines. Classified operation.”

Dean nodded.  
  
“What they didn’t tell me was that the program is rife for advancement and promotion because it has massive casualty rates, and anyone who survives their first six weeks on a gate team is practically a miracle. They didn’t tell me I’d find one of my teammates hoisted up like a scarecrow on an alien planet because we’d pissed off the eight-foot-tall lizard men who considered our mine an intrusion on their sacred ground,” Lorne continued.  
  
Dean swallowed hard.  
  
“They didn’t tell me I’d get to see another galaxy, that I’d learn more about the universe than anyone could dream of. They didn’t tell me I’d be walking the razor’s edge between dream and nightmare.” Lorne fell silent, began stabbing at his chicken with his fork.  
  
And Dean realized. “All those pictures. The ones you draw, the ones Jonathan bought,” he said in a low voice. “They’re real, aren’t they? Real alien planets.”  
  
Lorne nodded.  
  
“They’re beautiful,” Dean said. He tilted his head. “You haven’t done anything new, recently. Sammy went by the gallery a few times, just to see. He and Dad have been keeping an eye on Jonathan’s art collection, and when Jonathan’s birthday rolled around, Sam thought it might be nice to add to it. But there wasn’t anything to add.”  
  
Lorne said nothing.  
  
Dean leaned in, lowered his voice. “Where does Jonathan fit into all this? He’s younger than me, not a soldier, not a scientist.”  
  
Lorne said, “That’s classified, even from regular SGC personnel, which is saying something, because not even the President knew about us for a while.”  
  
“Is he all right?”  
  
Lorne closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “I hope so.”  
  
Dean had thought that finally making it here, to Stargate Command, would give him the answers he wanted. Instead, he had more questions than ever.


End file.
